ago, having come here to make a
home for the family left behind in Russia. The boy had grown up in
ignorance of the place of his father's death and burial, and, as the
eldest son, he felt it his duty to find his father's grave. Filled
with this idea he came to America as soon as he was grown and
landed in New York, but his few poor clues availed him little
against the difficulties of poverty and a new and complex
environment. In the end he gave up the search, married, and settled
down on the east side. After the sudden quarrel which led to his
leaving home, his wife thought it possible that his old obsession
might have reawakened. The Bureau, supplied with the clues in
question, had little difficulty in discovering the father's burial
place in St. Louis; and the cemetery authorities promised to send
word if the missing husband should appear. Sure enough, a short time
afterward he arrived, and, after visiting the grave, returned, not
unwillingly, and took up his family duties again under the
supervision of a probation officer.

The flexibility of method and the readiness to see and utilize new
resources which are displayed in the foregoing account are great assets
to the one who must institute search for a missing husband and father.

The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a class of peculiar
technical difficulty for the case worker is not simply that the man is
away from his family. There is no man to deal with in a widow's family,
but widows' families present comparatively simple problems. The
deserter, though absent, is still not only a potential but also a real
factor in the family situation. The plans of the family are often made
with one eye to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt obstacle
to much that the social worker wants to accomplish. The children look
forward to his reappearance with dread or with joy (for many deserters
have a way with them, decidedly, and are welcome visitors to their
children). In short, he is usually at the key point in the situation. No
plan can safely be made that leaves him out, but--there's the rub!--you
cannot include him at once for he is not to be reached, certainly not at
the outset. The discovery of the deserter's whereabouts is not only the
first but the most urgent of the problems that confront the worker who
tries to deal with a deserted family. Unless he can be found the whole
plan rests upon shi